


Control

by spacebounds



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Disorder, Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebounds/pseuds/spacebounds
Summary: Tour life is hectic and everything feels out of his control, but Michael always finds solace with you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> idk idk what to ever put in the notes so whateverrrrrrr i'm moving fics from my tumblr (thinqng) to here

It starts the night he’s flying back home after tour ends. Just like he promised, he calls you as soon as he grabs his luggage, and he can practically hear the grin on your face as you tell him you’re back at the house the two of you share and you’ll be home and waiting for him to come to you. There’s a faint feeling of exhaustion washing over him now that he can finally breathe after months of touring, but also a feeling of excitement. He hasn’t seen your smiling face in so long and he makes sure to let you know how much he can’t wait to see you once he says his goodbyes to the rest of the boys. They don’t mind how distracted he is they know how much you mean to him.

When they go their separate ways, he finds himself narrating every solitary thing his doing as he maneuvers though the airport. “I just made a wrong turn and now I’m on the top floor.” ; “Two kids just asked me to touch my hair,” ; “I’ve somehow made it outside and managed to hail a cab. Guess who’s coming home, baby?” With every update you giggle and he smiles, wide and warm and genuine, because the thought of putting tour to rest and staying home and loving you is the most comforting thought he’s had in a while.

“God, I’m so excited,” he breathes into the receiver, as the cab takes off and for the first time in months, he starts recognizing city streets. “The second I see you, I’m taking you into my arms and never letting go.”

“I know baby, I know,” you say, and he hears you gasp slightly. “Wait. Michael. You didn’t,” and your laughter is all he hears for a moment.

“What didn’t I do?” he asks.

“Don’t play dumb!” you say, and he’s not sure how to respond, because you sound so excited and giddy but he can’t think of anything that would be more exciting than knowing he’ll be home in just a few more minutes.

“I’m going to need you to enlighten me.”

“I can’t believe you’re already at the house,” you continue, and now Michael is completely confused, because he’s most certainly not at the house. He’s in the backseat of a cab and something is telling him that this isn’t right.

“No I’m not,” he says, his brows stitching together as he speaks. “Babe, are you in the house?”

“Yeah,” you say, and there’s something about your laughter right now that makes his blood run cold. For the first time since he’s gotten off the plane he notices how dark and dingy and ominous it is outside. Leaves are tumbling down the grey city streets and the sky has gone completely white as the clouds have meshed together.

“I’m not home yet,” he argues again, but you ignore his pleas.

“I can hear your footsteps upstairs, Michael,” you tell him. That’s it. That’s when he knows this isn’t right. His hands start shaking and palms start sweating and he feels like he wants to cry and scream all at once. He nearly drops his phone, struggling not to lose his cool when he whispers into the receiver, “Babe, that’s not me. Please, get out of the house.”

You don’t listen. “I’m going to get you Michael Clifford,” you whisper, and he’s begging, because he can’t see the house but he can hear your footsteps on the creaky stairs and he’s frantic now, his heart is skipping beats and he’s crying too and he keeps shouting over and over at you, “Leave the house, I swear to God I’m not home, please, please, baby, please,” but his begging isn’t enough, not when he hears the shrillness of your scream when you reach the top of the staircase and your phone clatters to the ground and all Michael hears is the last of your yells before the line goes dead.

This is usually when he wakes up.

The first time he had a nightmare after you two started sharing a bed, it didn’t seem out of the ordinary. It was one of those normal facets of life that people all tend to ignore until it happens again, like fender benders and untied shoes, so the first night that you were woken up by him, you hadn’t thought much of it.

Now, it’s a different story.

His nightmares have been getting more and more frequent lately, to the point where ‘recurring’ almost seems like an understatement. Every since tour, when he admitted to you that he had been to counseling but he started peeling back, you’d noticed a change in him.

“I’m fine, I just have to get readjusted to life, ya know?” he said. “It’s just like coming down from all that excitement that’s got me a little fucked up.” You had nodded, but you were almost certain that coming back from tour hardly explained the way he jumped at the slightest touch or winced at unexpected sounds, in ways that left him a caricature of himself in his own body. 

Right now, you wake up to his shaking body and and heavy breathing and incoherent muttering, and even with your head all foggy and dizzy and your muscles urging you to go back to sleep, you pull him close and stroke his hair and mutter, “It’s okay honey, it’s okay. I’m right here. You’re fine, I promise.”

“They’re coming,” he repeats over and over, his voice raspy as if he’d been screaming for hours before. He shakes his head violently, so much so that his body starts to convulse with it. “They’re here.” In the dark room, all you can make out is the vague outline of his silhouette, and the clock on your bedside blinking 2:53 AM consistently for another fifteen seconds before the time changes. All that you can hear is his short, shallow breaths that raise goosebumps on your skin as he exhales.

“Hush baby,” you whisper. “You are fine.” He doesn’t reply, and for a moment you think he might’ve fallen asleep in your arms until you feel the teardrops falling, slowly at first before they start streaming down his face.

“I don’t feel safe,” he mutters into the darkness, and it sounds more like a confession to himself than it does to you. This is the first honest confession about his feelings you’ve gotten since he came back home, the first time he’s broken down his guard enough to not hide behind fraudulent I’m fine’s and You worry too much’s. This is him admitting with all honest and shame that he’s not alright and he hasn’t been for a while and all he can do is bottle it up until it all spills out of him, drop by drop.

“You are safe,” you tell him as you press your lips softly to his head. “There’s no one here except for us.”

“No,” he mutters, anxious and indignant. “You don’t get it.” He starts shaking again, and you don’t prod him anymore, you just let him ride out his emotions and let him lie in your arms until he finds the strength to continue on. “I don’t… I don’t feel safe in my mind. I go to bed every night and wonder if I’ll be able to sleep all the way through without any nightmares. And I can’t ― I can’t do it. I can’t control these thoughts and…” he trails off for a while longer. “I can’t go back to the way I was when I was away.”

What he’s really saying is he can’t go back to hiding these feelings and masking them behind fraudulent I’m fine’s and You worry too much’s. All that flashing through your mind is Michael repeating those phrases over and over like a broken record on the phone with a rough, cracked hoarse voice, over and over just minutes after the band would call you saying they thought something was up with Michael, over and over as you knew he was lying but you wanted to let him be ready to open up to you when he wanted to.

Now, he’s willing to admit that he’s not fine, and that all your worrying is justified because he’s not okay but he wants to be and he just doesn’t know what to do. Neither do you. You hold him close to you, and press his head to your chest and you rub his back gently, slowly, soothingly, until his breathing is back under control.

“We’ll work this,” you mutter as you stroke his hair. “We’ll getting you talking to someone, if you want. You don’t have to go through this alone, Michael. I’ll be with you every step of the way.” He murmurs in a response, a calm, loving noise before he blindly wraps his arms around you and nuzzles close to you until he finally drifts back asleep to the rhythm of your hand on his back.


End file.
